originally emailed July 4, 2008, 10:03am
Happy 4th of July from the Lone Star State! We're up and ready for our final day of Choir Tour. This week has flown by for us -- can't believe it's Friday already.
Yesterday started out a little rough. The kids were wiped out from their day at Six Flags and several of them had lost their voices. grrrr They were generally tired, and it showed. We warmed up and they didn't show much improvement, so I gave a pretty good "You came here to sing and you need to rise up and do your job" speech. I think most people don't realize just how much energy it takes to sing a concert. Even though we know this music inside and out, performing it requires an incredible amount of focus and concentration. It is exhausting. But VIP managed to gets its act together and gave a good concert. Not their finest performance ever but certainly better than I thought they'd do.
We headed off to lunch at an Irish pub (yay!), and then a visit to the Alamo. We got to the Imax movie theater just before the rain came pouring down!
As we waited for the movie to start, I re-examined our afternoon plans. We had our big concert at San Fernando and if the choir didn't get some rest, the concert would be a flop. So, I surveyed the group and nearly half of them agreed that rest would be a good thing. Poor Elizabeth -- she had really lost her voice and the prospect of losing her precious shopping time was... well, a tragedy for her! But she eventually came to the wise conclusion that the shopping could wait. She, and the other kids came here to sing, and if they needed an afternoon nap to do that, so be it.
So, some people napped while others hit the Riverwalk. We had dinner and then it was time for the concert at San Fernando. What a space for singing. You couldn't ask for a better concert venue -- the acoustics were fantastic. And VIP rose to the occasion. From the first note to the last, this was their best concert yet. The music just soared in this cathedral and the happinesss of a job well done was evident on the kids faces, and on mine.
Minutes after the concert ended, the thunder roared and the rain came down in huge (loud) drops. The cathedral echoed with the sounds of the storm and once again, I gave thanks to God for his good timing. We recorded the whole concert and had that rain started any earlier, the sound of the storm would've been part of the recording. Texas has been in a drought for months -- leave it to the arrival of VIP to bring rain!
Off to the Children's Hospital...
Love,
Holly